Various automotive interior illumination devices are generally known from U.S. Pat. No. 8,075,173; U.S. Pat. No. 7,967,486; U.S. Pat. No. 7,938,566; U.S. Pat. No. 7,210,829; U.S. Pat. No. 6,974,238; U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,186; U.S. Published Application No. 2010/0214795; U.S. Published Application No. 2009/0196058; and U.S. Published Application No. 2006/0034092. Generally, a dashboard or instrument panel installed in a front interior area of an automobile is provided with various components and manual operation elements, such as switches and one or more wind-direction adjusting levers for one or more ventilation registers of an interior heating/ventilation/air-conditioning (HVAC) system of the vehicle. When an occupant of a vehicle experiences a dark environmental operating condition, illumination is required to assist the occupant to recognize the shape and position of various components and manual operation elements of the dashboard, so as to ensure usability or user-friendliness in using or manually operating such components and elements.
In a conventional illumination system, where the illumination member is incorporated into an instrument panel or dashboard to ensure user-friendliness, illumination light from the illumination member may directly come within the field of view of a driver sitting in a front seat of a vehicle interior. Even if an indirect illumination technique is used in the illumination system associated with an instrument panel or dashboard, illumination light from an illumination member may directly come within the field of view of a driver sitting in a front seat of a vehicle interior depending on the position of the illumination member and the direction of the illumination light. Illumination light directly coming within the field of view of a driver during dark environmental operating conditions is generally considered to be undesirable.